1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to vises and particularly to vise jaws and accessories thereto, specifically jaw plates and work piece holders used in combination with the plates.
2. Prior Art
It is known in the art to have general purpose vises with vise jaws appurtenant thereto with opposing flat surfaces for generally securing flat objects therebetween. Such vises are routinely used with mills, grinders, lathes, and machining centers.
Machining often requires accuracy to within 0.001xe2x80x3 or less, requiring the vise to secure an object reliably to an accuracy of less than that tolerance. However, it is often difficulty to reliably secure an object that does not have at least one flat surface that can be secured against a vise while the object is oriented as necessary for the machine work. Heretofore, the capability to support a work piece in a preferred orientation in a vise remained unavailable, especially for irregularly-shaped objects.
The primary object of the present invention is to provide a versatile vise jaw reconfigurable to secure a variety of shapes and sizes of work pieces in an advantageous orientation.
This object is achieved in a pair of opposing jaw plates each with front and back flat sides typical of vise jaws, the improvement in each comprising a precise uniform orthogonal pattern of holes in their front (opposing) sides. The holes are dual-purpose in receiving an unthreaded dowel or a threaded shoulder bolt, including a first unthreaded portion suitable for securely receiving a dowel closely therein. For securing the dowel in the unthreaded portion without wobble, the hole depth is twice its diameter. The hole terminates in a threaded portion immediately following the unthreaded portion and having a diameter less than that of the unthreaded portion diameter allowing bolt threads to pass through the unthreaded portion and engage the threads of the hole threaded portion. Thus, a bolt, such as a shoulder bolt, can be threaded into the hole threaded portion therein providing a positive attachment of the work piece holder to the plate. Typically, the unthreaded portion is sized to closely receive standard {fraction (5/16)}-inch dowel pins to a hole depth of ⅝-inch.
Another object is to provide that work piece holders with at least two dowels or bolts employed to secure the holder to a plate may be positioned on the plate at any advantageous position. This object is achieved in centers of the at two dowels or bolts being spaced apart a set distance, d, and with respective plate holes spaced apart from centers of vertical and horizontal neighboring plate holes said distance, d.
A further object is to provide a number of versatile jaw work piece holders as accessories to the versatile vise jaw plates, each with at least one dowel pin or shoulder bolt for insertion in the plate holes. Typically, two or more work piece holders advantageously selected from a collection of work piece holders are employed in concert with each other and in combination with the jaw plates to secure a work piece between the vise jaws. The work piece holders can be employed on one or both plates as may be dictated by the shape of the work piece.
Work piece holders include a plurality of dowels extendable in the holes beyond the jaw front side. Thus, for example, dowels placed in a first line of holes in the jaw together with dowels placed in a second line of holes orthogonal to the first line present a rectangular support for an object to be supported at 45-degrees in the jaw. Similarly, a dowel placed in the jaw may cooperate with another dowel or another different work piece holder, such as a sine bar, for example, elsewhere in the jaw to define a line for supporting an object at an angle. Likewise, two or more pins may serve to support curvilinear surfaces, such as a round, between the pins.
For other unusual shapes, such as an object with acute-angled surfaces to be secured, an different selective member from the collection of work piece holders can be employed, such as a pivot bar which comprises an elongated member with a flat longitudinal side with a dowel in its back side for engaging the jaw. The pivot bar then pivots on the dowel to match the angle of the object being secured in the vise. A pair of pivot bars or a pivot bar in concert with another work piece holder, such as a dowel, may be advantageously employed together to secure the object.
A sine bar is also provided in an elongated member having a hole on a pivot end through which a shoulder bolt passes into a jaw hole and on which the bar pivots. It can be tightened into a positive secured position on the plate by threading the shoulder bolt tightly into the jaw hole threads. Typically, the hole includes a concentric countersunk hole for receiving the bolt head within the work piece. The other end, or free end, of the elongated member is supported at a bar support pin by one from a set of blocks of calculated height intended to rest on the vise or by a selected work piece, such as an angle block or a cam block, described below. The support block or other work piece holder is then chosen that supports the free end at the desired height equal to the bar length.
A xe2x80x9cVxe2x80x9d block is useful for holding curvilinear objects vertically or horizontally, depending on its orientation. With a hole centered on the xe2x80x9cVxe2x80x9d and another on each side spaced apart to match those of the vise jaw, a dowel between the xe2x80x9cVxe2x80x9d block and jaw mounts the xe2x80x9cVxe2x80x9d block to the jaw. A single dowel mounted in the center hole allows the block to pivot to accommodate nonstandard shapes at any desired angle. A dowel in each of the outside block holes allows a vertical or horizontal orientation.
Yet another work piece holder is a spring-loaded parallel keeper, designed to hold parallels in place during machining operations, mounted to the versatile jaw with bolts passing through a mounting hole in a keeper mounting bar and entering jaw threaded holes from the jaw back.